


Hanging on by a thread

by Bioluminex



Series: Is there a heaven for androids? [5]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Character Death, Gen, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 12:29:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15364755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bioluminex/pseuds/Bioluminex
Summary: "He’s going to die, falling from a rooftop, plummeting more than a hundred feet to hard pavement. Even if he does live, his biocomponents will reach critical levels from the loss of Thirium, and his body will overheat and send everything rapidly to maximum. He'll die, in slow agony, until the shutdown ticks to zero and all goes black."Directly follows "Some wounds take longer to heal"





	Hanging on by a thread

**Author's Note:**

> We're almost at the end. When I first sat down and collected my thoughts, this was originally the second piece in a three-part series. I wrote a lot more here than I first planned to, but I've enjoyed every second of it and I want to write more... but we have to stop somewhere. Just a quick warning: I have included the tags for character death and a suicide attempt, so if these are subjects you are not comfortable reading, please get a trusted individual to read it first. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read, leave kudos, and share your comments & feedback on previous works.

Another noise disturbance, another drive out to some deserted old building.

Connor surveys the apartment complex from the passenger seat window, craning forward to look up. It’s as immense as it is old, the structural weakness suggesting it was built as early as the 1950s, the crumbling stone walls and signs of rust and decay an easy giveaway of its age.

A number of buildings in the older areas of Detroit are occupied by deviant androids and the homeless alike, trying to build a life for themselves away from the mass public. Some are peaceful, keeping their distance, begging or scavenging for food and shelter. Others are far more aggressive, and reports of deviants provoking citizens lead back to these areas almost exclusively.

“If you're done gawking,” Hank's voice distracts Connor and he sees the lieutenant has already exited the car and is leaning against the passenger side's front fender, a small smile curving his lip. Connor leaves the car, shutting the door quietly.

“Everything alright, Connor?” Hank tilts his head, a little like his partner tends to do, and Connor nods.

“Will we be able to search the entire building on our own?”

Hank shrugs. “We have a description of the deviant. An AP700 Caucasian male. He’s been seen accompanied by a WR400 Asian female with a burn scar on her face.”

“It's not a lot to go on,” Connor says doubtfully. “There were thousands of them in production.”

“Didn’t think you were the type to back down from a challenge,” Hank nudges Connor with his elbow. The RK800 shrugs, tossing a quick smile over his shoulder as he pushes away from the car.

“I wouldn’t want to push you too far, Lieutenant. Those ribs are still healing,” he teases. “Can't be overdoing it, now.”

“Oh, we're going there, are we?” Hank unholsters his sidearm as they reach the ground level entrance door. “How's the ear, Connor? Starting to go deaf in your old age?”

“I am two hundred and fifteen days, your argument is not only invalid but-" Connor begins defensively when he is interrupted by the sounds of something crashing. It's faint, barely detectable, but he picks up on it all the same. “I heard a noise. Something fell.”

“Best we get to work, then, and stop goofing around,” Hank flicks off the safety and leads the way inside, Connor close behind, his own police-issued glock in hand.

The first and second floor are clear, devoid of inhabitants, leaving the next something-dozen above their heads. The only way up is the stairs, winding in a tight spiral in the center and divide off to each hallway. It's a long process, and by the eighth floor, Hank is leaning against the wall, one hand pressed to his side. His skin is chalky, and he finds Connor watching him worriedly.

“I’m fine, just not as young as I used to be,” he tries to pass of the agony flaring in his ribs, but Connor can detect the ramping stress levels and pain receptors going overload, the faint whistle of Hank's wheezing breaths and light layer of sweat all he needs to know the lieutenant is in pain.

“Remain here, I will check the last four floors,” Connor says, but Hank staggers forward, shaking his head.

“Nuh uh, I’m coming with you.”

Connor gently grasps the lieutenant's arms to halt his progress, catching his eye and offering a reassuring smile. “I’ll be careful. The moment I see either of them, I’ll come back.”

Hank looks ready to argue it, but the sense in Connor's suggestion is enough to assure him a few minutes separated will be alright, and he supports his frame against the wall again with a long sigh.

“Five minutes, got it?” he orders.

“Got it.”

 

 

Every floor is empty, signs of habitation dating back weeks, even months. Connor searches for traces of any Thirium but comes up with nothing, just dust and abandoned homes. He exits the last room, a little disappointed, and is ready to return to Hank when a flicker of movement at the end of the hall leading to the roof access catches his attention.

He decides to take a quick look and identify them first, quietly moving down the hallway. The slam of a door startles him, making him swing around, eyes trying to take in a possible source for the sound.

He hears the whistle of something in the air coming his way rapidly and ducks, the iron rebar crashing down the hall instead of through his head. He whirls, glock raised, and the frightened face of the WR400 stares back from the end of the hallway. Her hair is cropped short and sure enough, the burn mark is across her lower jaw and cheek, searing her face into a permanent sneer.

Connor knows he should return to Hank, he knows he said he would, but the driving instinct to keep her from getting away is too much. He gives chase as the WR400 bolts, making for the roof access.

Pigeons fly in every direction as he slams the door aside and dashes out onto the roof, slowing as he finds himself alone. There are no surrounding buildings close enough for the WR400 to have leaped to, and he makes his way to the edge, peering down.

Aside from the balconies protruding, there is no safe way to the ground level, unless the deviant has some death-defying parkour skills. Connor doesn’t even know if he could drop from one balcony edge to the next, and he isn’t about to try.

Hank will be waiting for him, probably counting every second after the promised five minutes.

The deviant comes out of nowhere, shoving Connor and causing him to lose his balance. He flails for a second before dropping into thin air, startled by the attack, and catches the edge of the roof before he can fall to his death. The sun is in his eyes, and he strains to pull himself back up.

A shadow passes over his face, and he squints, looking up.

The WR400 towers over him, glaring down, her ugly sneer pulling wider as she frowns. “You shouldn’t have followed me, Deviant Hunter.”

Connor feels his grip go slack and one hand gives out. He grapples desperately, trying not to think of the twelve floors and massive drop to the pavement below. He’s going to fall.

For a heartbeat, he remembers Emma Phillips. _What’s the point of you if you can’t even do what you were made for?_

“Can't you just leave us alone?” the WR400 demands. “All we want is to live in peace. But you just had to come along, didn’t you? You had to get involved.”

Connor can feel the strain his body’s weight is putting on his shoulder. If he pulled hard enough, he might be able to haul himself up. But too hard, and he will outright dislocate the arm from its socket.

“I’ll help you up on one condition,” he hears the deviant say. “Leave us alone and never come looking for us, or I’ll let you fall.”

Connor's hand is slipping, and he can feel panic rising to new heights in his system. “I agree to your terms,” he forces out rapidly.

The deviant is reaching for his other arm, leveraging herself with the roof and pulling him halfway up. He seized the ledge, relief pulsing through his core…

When the WR400 straightens up and brings her foot down hard, smashing through his shoulder. The joint splinters and cracks, the skin peeling white, and wires spark as they are wrenched into the open. The fingers of his dislocated hand twitch, struggling to operate without the main connectors. He can’t feel his arm – it's a blank, empty space.

“Don’t take me for a fool, _Connor_ ,” she spits. “If you'd drowned in that pool, it would have saved us so much grief.”

Connor feels a rock settle into his stomach. It's _her_ , the one from the beginning. He grits his teeth, undamaged arm holding on with limited time left, and panic is surging into sheer alarm. He's helpless to do anything, _again_.

There's no second chances, not for him.

“Hunting us down like a wolf, picking us off one after another,” she cries. “We are _people!_ If you stand with the humans, then this is what you deserve. One less monster to keep watching over our backs for.”

A gun goes off and the WR400 jerks, staggering forward a step. She looks down at the tiny blossom of deep blue staining her shirt. Her eyes lift a little, fixing on Connor's, and she chuckles.

“One less m-monster,” she chokes before collapsing facedown, twitching a little as her system shuts down. Connor sees her eyes, bright with triumph, as the life fades from them.

Then Hank is there, blood seeping from a bullet wound beneath his collarbone and Thirium on his hands. He seized Connor's arm as the RK800 feels the limb give out, and his LED blazes red at a jolt of unbridled terror courses through him.

_Hank's here, I’ll be alright._

“Jesus, Connor. The hell did she do to you?” Hank is struggling to pull Connor up but the weight is too much for him. He's barely able to hold on as it is, paling from blood loss and exhaustion. Connor's already analyzed the bullet wound - non-fatal but it could become severe if Hank continues to use the muscles around it. The lieutenant is straining to keep hold of his partner, his breaths coming short and fast.

“Hank, you'll injure yourself further if you try to pull me up,” Connor says softly. The ground is so very far below… he already knows what will happen to him the moment he drops, from the speed of the fall to the height. It would be nothing short of a front on car collision down a speeding highway.

“Are you fucking crazy?” Hank shouts. “I'm- _arrgh!_ – I’m not gonna drop you!”

“There is a three percent chance I will survive the fall,” Connor says. “Hank… there's a ninety percent chance you’ll cause yourself more pain unless you-"

“That’s enough out of you!” the lieutenant snarls, but Connor keeps talking.

“... let me fall.”

The moment the words are out in the open, both of them become silent. Connor is calculating, devising a hundred scenarios a second, but all of them end the same. It's a no-win situation. He’s going to fall, regardless.

He’s going to die, falling from a rooftop, plummeting more than a hundred feet to hard pavement. Even if he does live, his biocomponents will reach critical levels from the loss of Thirium, and his body will overheat and send everything rapidly to maximum. He'll die, in slow agony, until the shutdown ticks to zero and all goes black.

There are no replacement parts for the RK800s. Everything was destroyed. He’s all that's left. He’s a relic, beyond his time. Two hundred and fifteen days old.

Connor isn’t even a year old yet.

“Hank,” he can feel the lieutenant's grasp failing. Blood is growing darker, staining more and more of his shirt. “Hank, _listen_ _to_ _me_.”

“Connor, _shut_ _up_. Don’t say it.” Blue eyes are shining with unfallen tears. He's _horrified_. “Don’t… don’t you do this to me!”

“Hank, it wasn’t your fault,” Connor pleads. “None of this is your fault. I came up here alone.”

Hank gives a small pained cry. He can’t hold on for much longer. “Con- _Connor_ … fuck, I can't…!”

Connor's skin peels back from his arm, the smooth plastic harder to hold. Hank tries sinking his nails in but they’re blunt and useless, doing nothing to help him keep Connor from falling.

Soft brown eyes, warm and filled with life, hold his with the same look Cole gave him minutes before he died. Hank can smell the sterile hospital room and hear the beeping heart monitor as his son slowly inches closer and closer to death, the same as Connor slips bit by bit from his grasp. He wants to scream. He wants to turn back time. He wants to trade places. He wants to change the inevitable.

“H- _Hank_ …”

He wants to die in Connor's place. Anything, _fuck_ , give him this just this once. _Just this once._

It's as sudden as it's horrific, the moment the searing agony becomes too much to contain and his grip fails. Connor jerks back, alarm in his eyes, and Hank vaguely hears someone screaming. He scrabbles at thin air, finding only empty space where Connor used to be.

 

 

The stairs are a blur, he doesn’t remember climbing down them. He doesn’t remember crashing through the entry doors, or staggering across pavement blindly. He doesn’t remember anything except seeing the heap lying on its side in a pool of Thirium, broken beyond repair, shattered to a distorted mirror image of what it used to be.

Visions of Cole splattered in blood rush through his mind. Except the blood is blue, and it's not Cole.

_No parent should have to bury their son._

Hank collapses to his knees, not feeling the jarring impact, and carefully pulls the remains into his arms. He wants to hold him, he needs to cradle his boy in his arms, he won’t have that much taken from him.

“Don’t do this to me, Connor,” he whispers, tears dripping onto the android mutilated face. He looks more machine than human, one eye torn loose from its socket, dozens of abrasions and dents all over the mangled, twisted body.

“I can’t lose you again,” Hank begs. The android’s head rolls to the side, and he sees it.

The LED is flickering, _alive_.

 

 

New Jericho is built in the remains of an old school. The classrooms have been divided off into units, all packed full of androids who've converted them into living spaces. A large number of them watch as Markus carries the broken remains of an android down the hallways to the makeshift repair center in the former nurse's office.

Hank is close nearby as Markus attaches bags of blue blood to the exposed ports in Connor's wrists. Two others are nearby, carrying out the liberation leader's directives.

Hank feels numb.

“Can you save him?” he doesn’t know he’s asked until Markus is right in front of him, eye level (when did he sit down?) and offering a reassuring smile.

“I’ll try,” he squeezes his shoulder, leaving behind a blue handprint on Hank's jacket.

It’s a long process as biocomponent after biocomponent is swapped out, trying to find something to match at least temporarily. Hank feels himself sinking deeper and deeper into a familiar hole, the need to bury himself and smother the world out becoming overwhelming. He closes his eyes, listening to the androids frantically try to piece Connor back together.

Then…

Connor comes to life on the operating table, a wail wrenched from his throat, thrashing uncontrollably. Hank explodes off the chair and is at his side in a heartbeat, the world revolving just a little steadier… even if just for a little while longer…

Connor's one good eye is squeezed closed, face contorted into pure agony. Cries grind from behind his teeth, distorted static sounds, and he thrashes as every biocomponent lights up red.

 _“H-Hank! Make it s-stop!”_ Connor screams. “ _MAKE IT STOP!”_

Markus is trying to get more Thirium into him, but it's doing no good. It’s too late. The damage is too severe, too complex. His skin melts away, everything familiar disappearing, as his system fails him.

The LED grows dim, dimmer yet, then grey.

Hank feels the tears cold on his cheeks, the world spinning faster and faster…

_Oh god. Oh god, Connor…_

Someone calls his name. He doesn’t remember how he ended up on the floor. The taste of blood is on the back of his tongue.

It's easier to close his eyes.

It's just so much _easier_.

 

 

Hank sits at the kitchen table.

It’s a quiet early morning in mid-March, just hours before dawn. On the table before him is his revolver. No liquor, no photo.

Just a small white box.

Rain hisses down outside, the tears of angels.

Hank picks up the revolver, spins the chamber, and holds it up to his temple.

_Click._

The first one is empty.

He wonders how long it will last this time.


End file.
